


This is it, boys, this is war. - Harry Styles oneshot

by merhoran



Category: One Direction
Genre: Breakup, F/M, Goodbye, Love, Oneshot, Sex, War, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merhoran/pseuds/merhoran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a Harry oneshot inspired by Some Night by Fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is it, boys, this is war. - Harry Styles oneshot

I remember that day as it was yesterday. She was sitting on the stairs of her porch, the sun was setting and it made her skin look more tanned. Apparently, she was sitting calmly, her torso slightly leaned forward and her chin resting over her hands. But, if you looked at her more fixedly, you could see a foott moving madly. She was anxious, wishing to get up and bite her nails and pull her hair.

I remember looking at myself in the mirror for the last time before putting on my dark green boots, almost brown, and grabbing my silver chain with my name on it: Harry Styles.

I also remember saying goodbye to my family, my mum and my sister crying, I remember how my stepdad whispered words of encouragement into my ear while hugging me. He was too old to go to war. America in the 40’s was a hard place.

“I am sorry, I have to leave. But I’ll be back soon. I will.”

I was born in England, but my mum got divorced soon and found another man, an American man that made her happy enough to move there with her children.

I met Maria during my third year in high school. It was the first day and she was the new girl, she was only 15 and I was 16, and I already had a lot of girls sighing for my bones. People used to talk about the curly, British boy in the corridors. I asked her to come with me to the Autumn Dance.

“Please, forgive me if I seem forward, but I have never been in front of anything like you…” I remember saying to her at the high school door, her cheeks turning pink.

She looked beautiful with that dress at the dance; everybody was dying of jealousy. I was her first kiss, she confessed me later. Also her first love. She liked to say she fell in love with me that night, but I always knew that was a lie. Maria was difficult to get. She was sweet and she liked my attention, but I know I fell for her before, and I also know I fell more.

So there was Maria waiting for me, her dress mildly fluttering over her knees with the afternoon’s wind. I exited the car and her eyes opened wide; she ran towards me and hugged me tight. That wasn’t the first year I was going to war, when I turned 18 I also had to go to a battlefield, but things were calm there and all we did was play poker and look at photos of our girls, deciding who was the prettiest. Andy’s girl always won, but I always considered Maria as the prettiest one.

Her hair smelled as good as usual, maybe even better. My name on her lips had a bittersweet taste that caused my throat to dry up.

“Harry.” She murmured again and again as she held my uniform, clenching her little fingers around it.

She was wearing a beige dress and a little flower in her hair. My uniform with different shades of green contrasted against her. I smiled, and she kissed me with tears in her eyes.

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning a car will come for me to drive me to the airport.”

She sank her head in my chest again, and I kissed the top of it.

“You know that I probably won’t fight, Maria.” I murmured. “Do you remember last year? Do you remember how scared I was? It was for nothing, Maria, for nothing… I didn’t touch a single gun. I didn’t see a single enemy, just friends. This year will be the same, I am sure.”

But I wasn’t. We both knew that year was different, we both knew things were becoming difficult.

“I love you.” She whispered.

“I love you, Maria.” I replied, grabbing her hands together into mine and kissing them.

I loved Maria, and I still do. Of course I have loved other women, but not like her. I could never forget her, but I was scared she could forget me, so that night I made sure she wouldn’t. I took her to her room and made sure she’d remember me for the rest of her life. I made that night unforgettable.

“I’ll be back before you even notice.” I whispered, kissing her warm tears.

In the darkness of her room I caressed her pale skin, that skin that the sun had never seen, that skin that nobody but me had the pleasure to touch, kiss or taste before. I made her toes curl and her nails dig in my back, I made her moan my name and beg for more with her velvet voice, a voice that caressed the words before letting them out. We fell asleep next to each other, completely naked, our bodies pressed together on a tight hug.

When I woke up that morning she was still asleep. Silently, I wore my uniform and my boots, taking my silver chain from her bedside table. I felt her fingers wrapping mine gently under the sheets, and I turned to look at her. Her head was peacefully resting over the pillow, but her eyes were scared. A single tear was travelling down her cheek.

“Stop crying, please.” I begged, kissing her lips. She shook her head and dried up her eyes. “It’s time to leave, Maria. The car is already there.”

“I’ll go downstairs with you.” 

We went downstairs holding hands and saw the blurred figure of the man who had to drive me to the airport against her door, waiting for me. Maria’s hands started to shake at the image, so I held both of them tightly to make them stop.

“Sh, it’s alright.” I kissed them, and she stared at me with terrified eyes. “I’ll be alright.”

She offered us a coffee, everything to make me stay with her a little longer, at her safe house. But we both shook our heads, there was no time. They had to shave my curls again and find me a good gun.

“You will be back, right?” She asked me with the voice she had left.

I pulled myself closer to her ear slowly and pressed my lips against it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk in a loud voice.

“I promise.” I whispered.

I kissed her before entering the car, and it was the best kiss nobody ever gave me. I could feel pain through it, I could feel how much she already missed me though she had me closer than ever before, but I also felt all her love, everything she felt for me. That filled me up, made me feel invincible. The most beautiful woman in the world, the most intelligent and the funniest girl, the most incredible girl I have ever met, loved me. I was coming back, for her.

And that’s what I did. I came back home after an entire year, but after that summer, the best summer of my life, everything changed.

At first we were in a camp just like last year, and we didn’t see anybody until the second or third month. I sent a letter to Maria each week, and she always answered them. She missed me, that was what they said. But after a few months her answers stopped coming so usually, and they didn’t say the same things. Each month, when the mail came, there was barely a letter when there used to be at least three of them. My friends used to look at me with sadness in their eyes, but they quickly entered their tents to read their letters. They did have someone waiting for them at home.

During those months I killed men without questioning if they had a girlfriend or a wife, even a mother, and saw how my friends died in front of my eyes without being able to save them. I didn’t suffer the same fate, and sometimes I wonder why.

When I came back home Maria was different. I knew she still loved me, but I also knew she was fighting to not doing it. She stopped inviting me to her house, she stopped whispering words to me and kissing parts of my body not even myself knew. I don’t blame her; she was scared. She knew next year I could disappear again on a plane, a ship or a train, and maybe never come back. For me it would be easy, I wouldn’t be the one waiting hopeless for the person she loved to come back, letting the agony compress her chest until she couldn’t breathe anymore.

No, I never blamed her. I loved her too much.

But still today, though I have a wife and children, I still remember her. I came back to England and found another woman who made me feel something similar to what Maria did. But, yes, I still remember her. Her hair tangled in my fingers, her lips caressing mine, her trembling thighs and her sweet perfume.

God, I would love to see that girl again…

I wonder a lot of things, and none of them has an answer. Where is she? Does she have children, as beautiful as mine? Is she happy? Does she live in that house she always dreamt about, that house I promised to build for her?

But the most difficult one, that question that makes me smile sadly and look to her beloved stars trying to find an answer, begging them to tell me the secret they are keeping…

Is she still thinking about me as I do, is she still loving me as I do?


End file.
